


A Darker Stripe

by Rubynye



Category: DC Comics
Genre: Bondage, Handcuffs, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-13
Updated: 2010-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:22:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a long day, and it won't be over anytime soon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Darker Stripe

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [A Darker Stripe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1457554) by [DOUHUA](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DOUHUA/pseuds/DOUHUA)



> A sequel to ["To Conciliate a Tiger"](http://www.livejournal.com/users/rubynye/132855.html), but should make reasonable sense even if you haven't read that.

Title: A Darker Stripe  
Fandom: DC Comics  
Characters/Pairing: Deathstroke/'Renegade' (Slade Wilson/Dick Grayson)  
Rating: NC-17  
Warnings/Categories: Slash, light bondage. Probably a little disturbing.   
Summary: It's been a long day, and it won't be over anytime soon.

Dick leaves the water running as he steps cautiously out of the shower; he waits a moment, and another to be sure, then takes a big steam-laden sigh of relief. There are no white-haired Wilsons waiting to ambush him, just an otherwise empty bathroom and a mirror that's done him the favor of fogging over. He turns the water off, and listens at the door as he puts his lockpicks back on, but no one's breathing in the hallway, and Rose would probably fidget too. Maybe, possibly, they're actually leaving him alone.

Maybe. Towel tucked around his waist, Dick walks as quickly and quietly as he can, but the hallway's as empty as the bathroom. He makes himself look up, almost expecting a grin and a pounce from the ceiling, but all he sees are plaster and light fixtures. And Roy's round, shocked eyes.

It's been a day. Shit, Roy let Dick hit him. It's been a long day, and it won't be over anytime soon, but Dick's got a few hours till when he's supposed to meet Sophia, and hopefully, if things go right, get her out of here. A few hours to lie down and hope nothing happens. Thinking about how much sleep he can afford, and not thinking about anything else including the limp thud when Roy hit the ground, Dick opens his door.

Slade Wilson is lounging in Dick's bed, sheet tucked up to the waist, reading a National Geographic and dressed in nothing but a suede eyepatch.

Dick curses himself briefly for leaving the light on, for not listening at that door, for working with Deathstroke, for existing.

"Don't look so shocked, kid. I did say you weren't allowed to have a private life." Slade dog-ears a page with two big, precise fingers, sets the magazine on the nightstand, and smiles blandly at Dick. "Shut the door."

Dick shuts the door with his shoulder, sternly telling his body danger isn't a turn-on. Not when he's wearing only a small damp towel. Not this kind of danger. Not even if it is. "What are you doing here?"

That doesn't even get an eyebrow raise. "I _live_ here." Just the same bland smile. "Get over here already and sit down."

"I think I'll stand." As if the day hasn't been long enough already. "And I could use some sleep."

Dick's not sure if he's gaining or losing when Slade laughs. "You only need a few hours, Grayson. You said so to Terra." Losing. "Remember her?" Dick can feel his own face trying to twist, and it's a wrenching effort to keep his expression neutral. "Great little agent. Loved working with her." Slade gets up, and before Dick can dodge Slade's in his face, pinning him against the door. "It's so much fun, working with you kids. Like being young again myself."

"Good thing you've got Rose around." That was too soft, too quiet, but Dick's breathing shallowly to keep his folded arms from brushing Slade's chest, and looking Slade in the eye means his head is tipped back further than he'd like. "And me to help you keep her alive."

Dick's run of luck tonight just keeps on running. Slade's face hardens, and he thunks one hand on the door beside Dick's head. "Speaking of my daughter." It's not easy to look impassively at a large naked mercenary who's possibly as far as an inch away. "Rose said you took her and your little side project to see Huntress."

The worry clenching in his gut is familiar; letting it distract him won't help him get Sophia to safety, or help Rose. "I figured she'd be a good role model for strong young girls." Slade's breath hot on his face, Dick thinks about ducking, about lunging up for the kiss, about how insane his life is, and grins.

Slade doesn't. "She also told me you tried to leave both girls there." Oh. Dick opens his mouth to lie and deny it, but Slade just runs right over him. "I thought you knew better, Grayson. My daughter isn't a parentless waif. People who try to get between us don't stay healthy."

"Is that why you had her foster parents killed?" There's an alarm going off in the back of Dick's head, a pleading little voice of reason that's asking exactly why he's so insistently pissing Slade off, but the adrenalin surge just hit Dick's brain, and combined with arousal it's a good enough substitute for exhilaration. When Slade bares his teeth Dick just smiles wider.

He's pretty sure he looks surprised when Slade tosses him across the room. Not very hard, for Slade, but hard enough.

A twist, a roll, and Dick catches himself and lands crouching on the far side of the bed. He rocks a little, and the towel lands on the bed, but nothing's bruised except his pride. Pulling himself together into a ready position, Dick looks up just as Slade's shadow falls over him.

Slade's not attacking him, actually. In fact, the man's smiling. "You look good in midair." Slade reaches down, deliberately slowly. Seeing Slade move used to be a signal to get _away_; it probably still is. Dick doesn't move as Slade folds big hands around his shoulders and lift him to his feet. "You're holding out on me, Grayson," Slade says, amused and almost warm, and there's the kiss.

Dick shrugs to himself and kisses Slade back. The man's idea of foreplay is really not surprising. He rubs Dick's arms, hands moving with the same rhythm as his mouth, pushing them back a bit as he pulls Dick up against himself. His chest's broad and scarred, his mouth's hot and firm, and Dick pushes up into the kiss with honest eagerness. The beard's rasp is even almost a tickle.

The cuffs don't even jingle till they click around Dick's wrists. Yeah, not surprising.

Dick bites Slade's lip anyway. There's no point doing anything halfway, including suicidal sex. The wince in response sends a fierce little thrill through him, the growl a deeper one, and it's pleasantly difficult to plan how to catch himself with cuffed hands whenever Slade stops kissing him and throws him across the room again.

Slade doesn't do either. Instead he chuckles deep in his throat, pressing his hands in hard as he slides them up Dick's back, rubbing his neck and cupping his face; when Slade's hands push up into his hair, Dick can't open his eyes. Not even when those hands clench tight around two fistfuls, not even when Slade drags him to his knees. The burn in his scalp is almost enough.

"So, kid." Slade tugs him forward, and Dick smells him, musky and deep, and has to swallow hard. "You can probably get out of this without even leaving a hair behind." Another tug, till the head of his cock bumps Dick's cheek, and Dick barely manages not to shiver. "But you won't, eh?"

"What if I do?" As if, with his voice nearly breaking like he's fourteen again. Fourteen and on his knees like he never was. The lockpicks on his wrists feel far less real than the hands in his hair.

Slade's laugh is lower, differently familiar, his thumbs stroking hard circles at Dick's temples. If he squeezed, he could fracture Dick's skull. "You won't, kid. You belong to me."

Dick can't keep from shuddering. He wants to tilt his head into the press of those hands, fill his mouth and blank his mind. "I work for you." He barely sounds like he believes that himself.

Slade's chuckle is low and perfect and wrong. "Do you think that's all this is?" And his voice is... if Dick kept his eyes shut...

He shakes his head once, wincing gratefully when strands of hair rip out, and opens his mouth as he leans in.

Slade tastes like himself, and curses like himself; Dick presses his forehead against an abdomen scarred in familiarly wrong places, and Slade's hands are still tight and undeniable in Dick's hair. Dick knows who has him on his knees, who's rubbing pinky fingers on the back of his neck and hardening further in his mouth, and he tries to work on the cuffs in a different rhythm than he's bobbing his head. Slade is overwhelmingly present and can't feel like anyone else.

Even if the man does a chest-tightening Batman impression. "I played your little redheaded buddy, you know." Somehow Slade tucks a chuckle into the flat, deep voice that slides under Dick's skin no matter how hard he tries to concentrate. "Arrow's first sidekick. He's damn pretty on his knees." The only image Dick wants to contemplate less than Roy kneeling for Slade is the way he looked flat on the ground. "I wonder how long I could've made _you_ think I was Batman?"

He couldn't have, ever, and Dick says so with a graze of teeth. The answering flat-handed smack sends sparks across Dick's vision; he nearly drops the lockpick, and would laugh if he could. Slade laughs for him, a little breathlessly. "Kid. Won't you ever learn?"

Pretty much never. Dick moves his tongue in a faster spiral, listening to the roughening breathing above him. He's starting to run out of air, but he's not backing off now, not when the big fingers in his hair are starting to shake and the right cuff's just about to give. Dick twists his hand till the cuff bites into his wrist, bobbing his head more showily to cover the move. His chest aches from oxygen dep, but he doesn't have to look up to know Slade's watching him. He might as well make it worth watching.

The cuff gives, and Dick presses it against the small of his back to keep it still, hopefully disguising the shoulder roll with a deeper bob and a hungry moan he tells himself he's feigning. "Does he know how pretty _you_ look on your knees, Grayson?" Slade sounds like himself again, and also a little reedy, and Dick doesn't snort, but he does let himself roll his eyes behind his eyelids. Roy was gone by the time they came back through the entryway. He's safe now, from Slade and from Dick. That line won't work anymore.

"The Bat." Which Slade knows. The voice is so perfect Dick almost feels slick gauntlets over the hands framing his face. He chokes like he's been kicked in the plexus, and now he _really_ can't breathe. "Has he had you like this?" The fingers twisting in Dick's hair, the bare fingers, pull him down harder, and he chokes again on the cockhead in his throat and hates himself when the drowning feeling just makes his own cock throb. "With your wet little pretty-boy mouth wrapped round his, heh, dick?" The lockpick slides across Dick's slackening fingers, and he barely catches it, barely manages to swallow, barely gets it together.

It's kind of funny that it's the lack of air that saves him. His chest hurts enough to be a real distraction, the roaring in his ears is getting louder. Slade growls something about "replacement" and "black-haired boys" that Dick is _not_ listening to, because he's going down till his nose mashes into the man's pubic bone and it takes all he's got to work his throat and the lockpick at the same time. The dizziness makes his hands a little clumsy and slow, but the trade off is worth it. He mostly can't hear words anymore, just a fragmenting rumble, and from the little bits that make it through the haze and the roar, bits like "little cocksucker" and "pretty boy" and "gorgeous," he really doesn't want to.

Until Slade wrenches his head back just as the left cuff gives, and swears fervently as he comes on Dick's face. And laughs.

That was uncalled for. Not to mention sticky. Dick splutters and heaves as his lungs realize they can have air again; as soon as he's not actively shaking he yanks his head free of Slade's loosening grip, rolls back on his heels, and stands up, dropping the cuffs. "Rrgh" isn't very eloquent, but dammit, the man got him in the forehead and it's on his _eyes_. Dick lifts a hand to wipe his face.

Slade catches his wrist, pulls him in, and licks him, and it's hot and terrifying and makes Dick want to drop to his knees again so badly he has to lock them. He dents his lip viciously to keep from moaning, and forces his breathing to stay even; Slade's still laughing, quietly and not at all softly, his tongue flexing as he drags it up Dick's cheeks and over his eyes.

Dick doesn't want to wrench free. He just wants to want to. "Don't."

Slade pauses, his face still so close the ends of his beard prickle along Dick's cheek, his breath hot on Dick's wet eyelids. "Don't what, Grayson?" he asks, and his voice is silky menace and no one's but his own. "Don't hold up my end of our deal? Don't give you what you want? Don't take care of you?"

"Don't--" But Dick's head is already turning, and none of the words he can feel crowding up his throat are anything he wants to let himself say. Slade's grin is toothy over the edge of Dick's mouth, his mouth is hard and slick, and Dick gives in and opens up, sinking into this like he's sunk into everything.

Slade wraps his other hand around Dick's bicep, over the bullet scar, and he rubs his thumb across it in unhurried strokes as he tilts Dick's head back. His tongue's unhurried, too, and warm, and big in Dick's mouth, like the rest of the man. Dick should really be used to him by now. He shouldn't still be so aware of Slade's physical presence, shouldn't want to melt against all that solidity, be so turned on by nearness to so much danger. He shouldn't --- he doesn't want. He's got a role to play and that's it.

Even when he lets Slade drag him onto the bed, even when Slade slides his rough-palmed hand up Dick's arm and his shoulder into his hair and the banked roughness makes Dick push into the touch and shake. He's letting himself shake. It's part of the act.

Bending Dick backward, Slade pushes his wrist beneath him, forcing Dick to arch over his arm, and Dick takes a deep breath against the dizzying rush and makes himself shove at Slade's shoulder like he means it. "Let go," he mumbles against Slade's mouth. "I need to move."

"You can move." Slade's fingernails scraping across Dick's chest make him hiss; the hard pinch to his nipple makes him twist, and it takes him far too long to slow then stop his hips from grinding against the thigh between them. "You move beautifully, kid."

"I could move better if I could use both my hands." Every breath brushes his cock against hard muscle and rasping hair, and he wants to let his eyes roll back in his head, wants to moan and give it up. But that's what Slade wants from him, and he's not giving it up that easy. Dick shoves harder, ignoring the hot scar under his hand and the way his sweaty palm slides across it. "Let me go."

"You're demanding tonight, Grayson." Slade breathes hard against Dick's temple and licks along the curves of his ear, and Dick's chest stutters and heaves when Slade's other hand presses the old bullet scar on his shoulder.

"This is-- this's uncomfortable, Slade." With his voice shaking, that sounded like petulance, not steel; Slade puffs a laugh into the ear he's licking. "Let go of my wrist, dammit." Dick tugs hard against Slade's grip, planting his feet for leverage.

"Stop trying to get away already." Slade's palm is rough on Dick's damp skin. "Or I'll hurt you." He pushes down on Dick's arm, arching him further, watching him wriggle.

The threat just makes Dick grin. "You won't hurt me." Which is at best hopeful. Before he even gets his eyes open Dick knows the look on Slade's face is shadowed and sharp.

"I won't?" Slade squeezes Dick's bicep around the bullet scar. "I think this little mark says differently."

"I figured that was a hickey." Slade grins, and Dick grins wider. "Besides, I'm too valuable."

Slade leans closer, settling most of his weight on Dick, and Dick has to struggle to keep up the challenging grin, to keep his eyes from flaring wide and his head from tipping back. "I've broken more valuable toys," Slade rumbles, and kisses Dick again, pulling him up by his wrist in the small of his back, pressing him down against the bed.

Dick moans before he can help it, and barely manages to see Slade's eye fall shut before his own roll back in his head. Slade growls and bites his mouth, bites his jaw, bites his neck, bites his shoulder, each one harder and hotter as Dick twists, pounding on Slade's shoulder and bucking against him. "Oh, fuck. Goddammit, just fuck me." Dick hears himself cursing, feels himself shamelessly writhing against Slade when the man's chuckle reverberates all across his skin; he's stopped telling Slade to let go of him, probably because he's bracing against the iron grip on his wrist, probably because he can't keep pretending not to want it.

Slade bites the hardest over the bullet scar on Dick's bicep, for so long that the throbbing sharp pressure all Dick can feel, till Slade's hand slides cool and slick beneath his balls. "Ulp," is just about the least articulate thing Dick could say, and Slade's chuckle makes him want to punch the man. Even more. "I just love it," Slade murmurs in that stolen voice, "When I can give people what they're asking for."

There's absolutely nothing to say to that.

Then it doesn't matter anyway, because Slade's kissing him again. He shoves two knuckly fingers in hard and deep, twisting them ruthlessly, and Dick groans through clenched teeth, arching all the way off Slade's arm. There's maybe one moment of something vaguely like shame; then Slade bites Dick's upper lip and pulls back enough to rub over his prostate, and Dick wraps his leg around Slade's waist and bucks into his hand, gasping into his mouth.

Slade laughs over his.

Dick claws at the broad scar-laced back and shoves his hand into crisp hair and kisses desperately, a little afraid of what he might say if he could, what he might hear if Slade could. Slade mercifully chokes off Dick's whimpering with his tongue and fingers him as hard and fast as Dick humps his thigh, and Dick writhes against him, riding the burn and the scrape, enduring the pleasure. All he can feel is Slade pressing him down and thrusting inside him, all he's aware of is his impending orgasm, till light sizzles across his sight and shudders spread out from the fingers bruising him through his whole body, knocking him from consciousness like a kick to the head.

Dick comes down from it shivering like he's freezing rather than hot, spangles fizzling in the dark behind his eyelids, and Slade doesn't let his mouth go. He just kisses Dick slowly, almost gently, rumbling a low steady note deep in his throat, eases his fingers out of Dick's body to pet him with messy slick strokes, releases Dick's wrist to spread his hand out under Dick's shoulder. Dick shudders against Slade's immovable weight like an out-of-control speedster, clinging to the man and letting himself be kissed till some of Slade's easy-breathing calm finally seeps into him, till he can wrench himself into stillness.

It takes Dick a long time to stop shaking.

When he finally can he takes a deep breath, pushing up against Slade's warm weight, and holds it as he disentangles himself, not letting his hands curve to the muscles of Slade's arms as he shoves away. Slade lets Dick go easily, and he squirms all the way to the far side of the bed.

Dick desperately needs another shower, and generally to finish this up. On the edge of the bed, facing the door, he stops. He can feel heat coming off Slade like he's got his back to a banked fire.

When Dick rolls back over Slade's eye gleams out of shadow. "Who _are_ you working for, kid?"

Back on the high wire. "Do you always use sex to soften people up for interrogations?" Not that Dick was ever off it. The side of his face itches with drying stickiness, his bones ache with exhaustion and he's variously sore, and the afterglow fuzzing his brain is a dangerously reasonable substitute for contentment. This keeps happening these days. He needs to dislike it more.

Slade smirks at Dick, but his eye narrows. "Only when they're as pretty as you, Grayson. Gonna answer the question?"

Or else, of course. "Rose. Sophia's safety. And you." Dick rubs his wrist as nonchalantly as he can and watches Slade as Slade watches him, muted thoughts flickering across his face.

The man winds up looking contemplative, maybe. "Really. Self-loathing mercenary, eh? Well, you fuck like it, anyway."

Dick opens his mouth, uses his brain for a moment, and shuts it again. He should be pleased with that assessment, instead of feeling winded and hollow.

He might as well have left his mouth open; he actually gasps when Slade plunks a heavy hand on his chest. "Uh. Shouldn't-- you're not going back to your room?" Slade never stays. How the hell will Dick get to his meeting with Sophia if Slade stays?

"I'd rather keep an eye on you." Slade smiles, sleek and toothy. "Go to sleep, kid. You've got a long day of teaching tomorrow." He shuts his eye and settles in, fingers splayed over Dick's plexus, relaxed as a tiger snoozing in the sun. A childhood warning echoes out of Dick's memory, his mother's voice reminding him not to get too close to the big cats.

Dick stares at Slade till his eyes itch. Then he stares at the ceiling, listening to Slade's slow, easy breathing. It's going to be a long night.

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers For/Based On: _Nightwing_ #111-114. And some older _New Teen Titans_ storylines.  
> Dedicated To: [](http://katarik.livejournal.com/profile)[**katarik**](http://katarik.livejournal.com/), who [told me how to start this](http://www.livejournal.com/users/katarik/9319.html#cutid1) and is a large part of why I finished it.  
> Grateful Praise To: [](http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/profile)[**brown_betty**](http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/), [](http://maelithil.livejournal.com/profile)[**maelithil**](http://maelithil.livejournal.com/), [](http://katarik.livejournal.com/profile)[**katarik**](http://katarik.livejournal.com/), [](http://petronelle.livejournal.com/profile)[**petronelle**](http://petronelle.livejournal.com/), and [](http://danachan.livejournal.com/profile)[**danachan**](http://danachan.livejournal.com/) for audiencing and encouragement, and to everyone who reassured when I needed it. *blows kisses to you all*  
> Author's Note: A sequel to ["To Conciliate a Tiger"](http://www.livejournal.com/users/rubynye/132855.html), but should make reasonable sense even if you haven't read that.


End file.
